Discourse on the 4th day of the festivities

1. We have completed reading from the Gospel of Luke about the resurrection of the Lord; here it was said, as we heard, that the Lord appeared among His disciples when they were speculating about His resurrection and did not believe. It was so unexpected and incredible for them that even when they saw, they did not see. For they saw a living body, which they mourned as if dead, they saw standing in their midst the One for whom they mourned hanging on the cross - they saw Him, and since they did not believe their eyes that they truly saw, they thought that they were mistaken. For they thought, as you have heard, that they “see the spirit” (Luke 24:37). What the worst heretics later believed about Christ was previously believed by the wavering apostles. For even today there are those who do not believe that Christ had flesh, because they deny being born from a Virgin, and do not want to believe that He was born of a woman. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14) - they completely alienate these words from their faith, or, rather, from their unbelief. The whole dispensation of our salvation, that is, that for the sake of the perception of man, God, Who created man, became man, and that Christ, for the remission of our sins, shed true and true blood and with His true blood washed away the handwriting of our sins - all this the godless heretics are trying to impute to nothing; in all this, like the Manichaeans, they do not believe: what appeared to human eyes was supposedly spirit, and was not flesh. 2. This is what the Gospel says. The Lord stood in the midst of His disciples, who did not yet believe that He had risen. They saw Him and thought they saw a spirit. If there is nothing wrong in believing that Christ is spirit and not flesh, if there is nothing wrong in that, let the disciples remain in this opinion. Listen carefully, try to understand what I want to say, and may God grant me to say it in a way that will be useful for you to hear. So, I'll repeat it. Sometimes they are disgusting heretics, abhorring the flesh and living according to the flesh, sometimes they say this and this is how they seduce: “Who believes better about Christ: those who say that He had flesh, or we who say: He was God, He was a spirit, not a body, but God appeared to human eyes?” What can we answer except that the spirit is better than the flesh? Then he will say: “Since you admit that the spirit is better than the flesh, then I think better about Christ, who says that He was spirit and not flesh.” O unfortunate delusion! How can I say that Christ was flesh?! You say that He is spirit, I say that He is spirit and flesh; It’s not that you speak better, but that you speak less. Listen to everything that I say, that is, what the universal faith says, what the most fundamental and purest truth says. You, who say that Christ was only a spirit, say that He was our spirit, that is, our soul. Listen to what you say. I am now saying what you are saying. He was a spirit of the same nature and essence as our spirit. Look how much less you talk about Him, because the Word was there and the flesh was there. You say: "Only the human spirit." And I say: Word, spirit, body - God and man. If I want to talk about both, about both of these things, I resort to this short expression: God and man. There is nothing false in His humanity, nothing false in His divinity - God and man. And if you ask me about this man himself, I will again name two things: the human soul and human flesh. You are a man because you are soul and flesh; He is Christ because He is God and man. That's what I'm saying. 3. But you think that you speak better of Him because you say: “He was a spirit, a spirit appeared, a spirit was visible, a spirit dwelt among men.” That's what you say. As I said, the disciples thought so too. If you say nothing bad, if what you say is good, then what the disciples thought was also good. If the Lord left them in their opinion, then you must be left too. What you believe in, they believed in too. What you believe in is good, and what they believed in is also good. But it was not good. The Lord says to them: Why are you embarrassed? Their confusion led them to believe what you believe too. What exactly? That they see a spirit. To this the Lord says: Why are you troubled and why do thoughts enter your hearts? These thoughts are earthly. If they were heavenly, they would descend into your hearts, and not ascend. For why do the words “Burn your heart” come to us, if not so that our heart, which we must place on fire, does not reveal earthly thoughts before itself? Therefore: Why are you troubled and why do thoughts enter your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet, touch them and see (Luke 24:38–39). It is not enough for you to see - stretch out your hands; it is not enough for you to look and not enough to touch - touch and feel. Let your hands confirm if your eyes lie. Touch and see, let your eyes be in your hands. Why touch and see? Why? Because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me having. You were mistaken together with your disciples - correct yourself with your disciples. I admit it's human. You thought that Christ was a spirit - so Peter and the others thought that they saw a spirit; but they did not remain in this error. So that you know for sure that the thoughts of their hearts were false, the Physician did not leave them like that. He came, applied the medicine; He saw that there were wounds in the hearts, and in order to heal these heart wounds, He Himself bore the wounds on His body. 4. So let's believe. I know you believe so. But so that bad grass does not accidentally grow in the Lord’s field, I even turn to those whom I do not see. Let no one believe in Christ differently than Christ wanted; and how useful it is for us to believe in what the One who redeemed us, who sought our salvation, who shed blood for us, who endured for us what was not due to Him, and who delivered to us what was not due to us, wanted to be believed about Him. That's what we should believe. Christ – what is He? Son of God, Word of God. What is the Word of God? What the human word cannot express is what the Word of God is. Are you asking me what is the Word of God? If I wanted to tell you what a human word is, I can’t explain, I’m exhausted, I hesitate, I’m exhausted. I cannot explain the power of the human word - much less God's Word. Now, before I tell you what I want to say, the word is already in my heart; it has not yet been said by me - and I have it; I pronounce it - and it comes to you, but does not leave me. You strain your attention to hear a word from me, I feed your minds. If I brought food for your bellies, you would divide it among yourselves, but it would not all go to everyone, and the more you were, the more slices you would have to divide, and each would receive as much less as the number of those receiving would be. But now I have just offered food to your minds; I tell you: take it, take it, eat it. You accepted it, ate it, and at the same time do not share it among yourself. Everything I say is whole for everyone and whole for everyone. So it turns out that it is impossible to fully explain the power of the human word; and you say to me: “What is the Word of God?” The Word of God feeds so many thousands of angels! For their mind is nourished and satisfied by Him. The Word fills the angels, fills the world, fills the virgin’s womb - and He is neither spacious there nor cramped here. What is the Word of God? Let Him Himself say, the Only Begotten Himself, the only Son Himself—let Him Himself say what the Word of God is. He speaks briefly about Himself, but what He says about Himself is great: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Don't count your words here. All the words that people can find are not enough to explain the One Word. And this Word, which cannot be explained, became flesh and dwelt among us, taking on the whole man, so to speak, in his fullness: the soul of man and the body of man. And if you want to hear something more precise (after all, even animals have a soul and a body), then when I talk about the human soul and human flesh, I mean that He took on the entire human soul. There were those who formed a heresy about this too and said that the soul of Christ had no mind, no understanding, no understanding. I don't want you to believe that. He who created everything has redeemed everything; everything was perceived, everything was liberated by the Word. Here is the human mind and understanding, here is the soul that vivifies the flesh, here is the true and perfect flesh - only there is no sin here. This Easter Sermon by Augustine was preached on Wednesday of Easter Week. You might be interested in: